2009 what a year!!!!

Hi all,

I wanted to take this time out to give a short recap of how God has been gracious to us in our labors to spread the Gospel. The year began with the launch of the Pause&think website and the feedback has been very encouraging, we received hits from all over the world and the year saw a steady increase of faithful hits to the site. A lot of you loved the design of the site and all credit must go to the Rocket Theme guys who designed the site which we then customized. The website was not made in vain and I believe God used it mightily in its short existence.

The summer presented us with opportunity to collaborate with Ragtime music and our church (Freedomhouse) where we put on a Hiphop and Jazz outreach. The lead up to the outreach was absolutely amazing as we went into the streets with our boombox spreading the gospel (in the rain!!), the rapping featured guys like Joe See, Open mc, Cadet, and the concert featured DJ K, Joe See, Karl Nova, Jason Harms Quintet and the lampmode team. Check out the video highlights below.

If you can not see the video below please click here

Another event where involved in was the Mary O Gallery exhibition, they where gracious enough to place one of my blogs in their publication so shout out to Mary and Tariro. The Moved exhibition featured a mix of urban, street, graphic and artistic photography, with thought provoking and inspirational quotes inspired by the bible. It focused on interpreting current social, political spiritual issues. You can see some of her work below.

If you can not see the video below please click here

I was also blessed to meet some of my musical influences, one in particular was Hiphop Mc “Mark J” , I met him back stage at the GL Live concert in london.

You can see him performing @ GL Live london here.

After a few requests from family and some of you out there I finally yielded and started my very own radio show. Basically I was spending the day with my family and was playing Mark J’s new album to my Dad in an attempt to get him to play the song on his radio show. He then responded by saying why don’t you do your own show and I will host it on my website and I said No!…lol.. about 3 months later I got an email from a friend suggesting I do a podcast too, so I chose the name “Jesus Muzik Mixshow” inspired from a song that we would play in the streets when we did evangelism. The radio show is growing and so are the listeners. I love music and sharing it and I hope you are blessed by the show!!

Towards the end of the year I attended a mens conference that was nothing less than inspirational. Praise God. I was blessed by the preaching of Paul Washer. The fellowship with guys I would not normally speak to was great, some of the old men members of the church really inspired me to want to know God more… The journey to and and from Ashford was good, met some friends that I was able to get to know more as we shared testimonies. I think I made some lifelong friends there!

Paul Washer giving me some good book recommendations.

During this past year Pause&think had two site crashes, unfortunately we did not recover from the second. I had other issues in terms of managing the site. I began to spend more time working on maintaining the functionality of the site and very little time was given to actually generating content. So I have decided to run everything from www.balivamusic.com, the site will be developed by the lovely people @ Amadi Design this will free up my time so I can serve you with more solid content. If you want to know more about how I came to this decision please click here.

As I am in the mood of giving thanks for all God has done in 2009. I would like to tell you all about Robert Lewis, he has been my right hand man aka the brains behind a lot of all thats been happening, his servant’s heart and faithfulness has been an encouragement to me and I wanna give thanks for him and I ask you all to keep him in your prayers too as we venture into 2010.

It is easy to look at this blog and think all was well, but behind the scenes there have been many trials and joys and while its easy to dwell and look down on the trials I have been reminded about how important it is to give thanks for all that God does through us. We may look and think its in vain but God sees things differently. He is using all our experiences to sanctify us.

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.” James 1:1-8

Make sure you take the time out to look through your year gone with a thankful heart for the good and bad. Serving God is the most rewarding thing on this planet and the full reward can never be seen on this planet, there is more to come when we meet God.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.” Colossians 3:16

Thank you to those of you who took time out to pray for us, to donate money and time given to making Christ known!!! God will surely reward you!!

As 2010 approaches I will be finishing my sabbatical from music and beginning to focus more of my time on the music as we head out into the city to do some Hiphop evangelism. My first night out will be new years eve and most Friday nights after. Musically I am not working on any new albums yet, the main focus will be hitting streets, concert venue’s etc. I do have a concept for my next album but thats for another time. I will however blog what I learnt during my sabbatical so stay tuned to www.BALIVAMUSIC.com

The Battle is not over yet, there are many people who have not heard the Gospel, the truth is that they are drowning without the true gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no other reason we exist except to live for Jesus Christ and only him, he is fully God and fully man and unless we live for him we are drowning. Lets not waste 2010 going to endless parties and building endless business empire’s with no regard for the lost. Keep things in Balance and stretch your hand out for the lost. Sacrifice your time for the GREAT COMMISSION

Signing out !!!!

But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? 15 And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news! Romans 10:14-15

Posted by Baliva